Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Make Masonry A Conspiracy Again!

Author Paul Spinrad has a decidedly unorthodox outsider's view of Freemasonry's origins, changes and future. His article, Masonic Conspiracy Revealed! in the latest online issue of Make Magazine makes some observations I've never seen anywhere else.

"Occult institutions evolve out of professional guilds after they stop caring about how to actually build things. In every age, geeks gravitate to where the interesting action is, and in medieval Europe, this was the cathedral – the structure itself, the art, and the pipe organ inside."

Spinrad draws from Jean Gimpel's fascinating (and long out of print), The Cathedral Builders to explain how the "space race" during the High Gothic period that resulted in higher and higher vaults gave way to the uninventive Low Gothic period, when the speculative Masons lost the knowledge they once had to create the masterpieces of before (much the same way that NASA couldn't build another Saturn V rocket today). As the secret knowledge of the building trade slipped away, only the "secret" part remained - the signs, grips, words and rituals.

"Let's say you're an insider who knows some secret mumbo-jumbo. Promoting the belief to outsiders that your secrets have great power makes this belief self-fulfilling because it makes outsiders think you have something on them. The more mysterious and powerful these inside secrets seem, the more effective the hype becomes. Now, if you imagine running this secrets-as-status dynamic recursively, you get concentrically nested levels of power, a hierarchy that runs from complete outsider to innermost circle. Add the human imagination on both sides, and you spawn a thousand occult rituals and a thousand conspiracy theories."

Consider that everything from the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, Crowley's OTO, college fraternities, literally hundreds of fraternities that popped up in the 1800s, right down to the text messaging abbreviation for "secret (s33krit), all descended from the Masonic model.

Spinrad compares the "geeks" who became master masons during the Gothic period to the modern "makers" - the geeks who craft, invent and dabble in all things gizmotic like electronics, computers, and even hackers.

"Cities across America have beautiful Masonic lodge buildings sitting on prime downtown real estate. Lodge membership is graying, and many chapters have closed due to the lack of new members. I think this presents a grand opportunity. Let's start a new masonic Conspiracy! Let's take masonry back and convert it from speculative back to operative! Let's get all the 'makers' we know to become masons, and turn all those gorgeous, unused lodge buildings into temples of geekdom! Who's with me?"

Some of Spinrad's comments are a bit on the outside, but there is a grain of truth to his basic assertion. I've spoken with many men (some brothers, some not) who are software developers and web site developers. These men are builders, and Masonry's symbolism holds a particular attraction to them.

Freemasonry is...

Freemasonry is the world's largest, oldest and best-known gentleman's fraternity. It is based on the medieval stonemason guilds who built the great castles and cathedrals of Europe. Modern Freemasons use the tools, traditions and terminology of those stonemasons as allegories for building temples in the hearts of men. It's said that we are a secret society. We do indeed have secrets—secrets that each individual man has to discover for and about himself. It's not for everybody. Maybe it's for you.

"Brother Chris Hodapp's [blog]...is thought provoking and is often the first place on the web where new ideas and matters of interest are posted."

Christopher L. Hodapp is the former editor of the "Journal of The Masonic Society." He is the author of the best-selling "Freemasons For Dummies," and "Solomon's Builders: Freemasons, Founding Fathers and the Secrets of Washington D.C."
He is the co-author with Alice Von Kannon of "The Templar Code For Dummies" and "Conspiracy Theories and Secret Societies For Dummies."
He has appeared on the History and Discovery channels on the subject of Freemasonry, its role in the founding of the United States and the building of Washington D.C.
Hodapp has spent more than twenty years editing, writing and directing as a commercial filmmaker. He has written for corporate and non-profit programs, and his voice has appeared in many television and radio commercials.
His newest book, "Deciphering the Lost Symbol," was published in 2010.
He is a 33rd degree Scottish Rite Freemason, and he lives in Indianapolis, Indiana.